This is a guest post by Nitin Aggarwal from offshoreally.com .
If you feel that after sitting down for eight almost-straight hours in front of the computer, you still haven’t done much yet – you might have to seek the help of tools to make you work more efficiently. Here, we will take a look at the different web-based time tracking tools that you can use, as well as discover why tracking your time is important in the first place.
How Important are Time-Tracking Tools, Anyway?
As the name implies, a time tracking tool is something that you can use to determine the exact number of hours that you already worked. A time tracking tool is important for those who are billing their clients for work done by the hour.
Let’s take a virtual assistant as an example. If you are working for a client in your home office on a per-hour basis, you need to have a time-tracking tool so that you can determine the number of hours that you have already put in. Freelance workers would also find the need to make use of a time tracking tool in order to have a system to track their billable hours.
Now, what are the things that you need to consider when deciding which time tracking tool to use? Basically, you have two options to choose from: a web-based tool and a tool that needs to be installed on your computer before you can use it. If you are using different computers to work, you may want to opt for the web-based time tracking tool.
Second, decide whether you want a free time tracking tool, or something which can be used for a fee. Naturally, a free tool will not give you all the bells and whistles that a paid tracking tool will have – so it is entirely up to you which one you would like to use.
More importantly, make sure that the time tracking tool is something that is easy to use – and maybe even has a bunch of cool features as a bonus!
Take Your Pick from these 7 Cool Time-Tracking Tools
So what are the best web-based time tracking tools out there? Here’s a quick list:
- ActiTimeActiTime’s tagline is “Keep on trackin’”. The tool is a clear, powerful and efficient software which allows you to track your time for a number of applications and tasks like doing weekly timesheets, leave or overtime tracking, creating detailed staff output reports and a lot more.
- CashBoardCashBoard is a financial time tracking software which aims to make your life easier. It’s a useful time tracking tool for freelancers, small business owners and large organizations. The interface of CashBoard is not that slick, but it comes in a professional-looking package which gives you the best value for your money when you’re getting the downloadable version.
- FreshBooks
“Painless billing” is where the specialization of FreshBooks lies as it allows you to send, track and collect payment quickly. As compared to other tools which have a modern-looking interface, FreshBooks is a bit more traditional but it does efficiently get the job done. - HarvestSleek, intuitive and fast are the best ways to describe Harvest, one of the top web-based time tracking tools on our list. Depending on your time tracking needs, you can take your pick from the free or the premium version of the tool.
- TickSpotAs indicated in their website, TickSpot or simply Tick is a simple and friendly time-tracking application which is focused on helping you hit your budgets. The interface is easy to use once you have finished configuring it, and the setup time is pretty fast.
- TogglTime tracking that works is the way that Toggl describes itself as a web-based time-tracking tool. Toggl is available in both a web-based and downloadable version – and the best news is, it’s free!
- yaTimeryaTimer offers painless time tracking which helps you track your tasks and projects; improve your productivity and estimation skills, print timesheets and do pretty much everything time-tracking-related. However, it is not available as a web-based application so it can only be downloaded and installed on your desktop.
No matter which of these time tracking tools you end up using, what’s important is for you to make sure that you are adept at using the tool so it should have a sleek, easy-to-use interface. Plus, it should have all the important and simply cool features to make tracking the time that you’ve worked on a particular project more efficient and a lot more fun.
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also worth checking out: http://www.yast.com
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Just got here from Twitter… same old recycled list i saw on other blogs. Surprised to see my favorite one missing (Paymo time tracker). Toggl is pretty cool too.
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@Halvor, thanks for the link
@Joe, if you read a list of top 10 search engines then it will always be same rehashed list that you have read on other blogs, so get OK with these lists. Paymo couldn’t make it to list ( I don’t like it).
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Have you ever tried Tempo? It also generates reports, charts and graphs. Plus you can input data via email, twitter, widget or directly for convenience
http://zetetic.net/c/tempo-forum
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@Alena,
Not yet but will check it out thanks!
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admin (403 comments) Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:51 AM
i think you must reply using reply button so that people will get and alert that they gor reply .
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I am planning to use a desktop tool for scheduling my work. Hope this will save me from installing a software into my crappy system. Thanks for sharing.
Sathish @ TechieMania´s last [type] ..How to Get your website approved By Buysellads BSA
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Nitin Aggarwal (5 comments) Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 1:53 PM
Hi,
Try out rescuetime for desktop software, It works great!
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Hi Satish,
Try out rescuetime for desktop software, It works great!
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Great tools, very nice post… Thank You for sharing
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[...] Social Catalog [...]
I like this article very much. thank.
add to my blog.
http://click9.net/2010/09/02/7-web-based-time-tracking-tools-to-track-your-time/
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admin (403 comments) Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:03 PM
Thanks for your effort
appreciated
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Nitin Aggarwal (5 comments) Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:23 PM
@Vivianjust
Thanks for adding it to your blog, however as a general advice I will say avoid that kind of thing. You are creating a duplicate content which will be harmful to both your site’s indexing and this site too. If you really want to quote something then always write a few lines about it and then redirect your visitors to the original link.
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Definitely take a look at Intervals as well, especially if you need to track time against tasks and projects and run detailed reports.
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Very useful tools, thanks for the same.
Anish K.S @ Technics Today.com´s last [type] ..SellMyMobilecom – A Cool Way to Sell Your Old Mobile Phones
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Nice list, it will surely help the freelancers and all
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very useful apps …most of the netizens spend hours on net
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nice list bro….
is there any tool to track the IP that has used right click on the site…??
Thanks for sharing…
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itin from NOffshore Ally (1 comments) Reply:
September 8th, 2010 at 5:22 PM
VisitorSpy can show you all that data, clicktale will also show you exact data on where the click was!
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Excellent share,
I had already used getharvest but i didn’t knew there are lots more….
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If having a sleek interface is what you’re looking for I’d check out 1DayLater time tracking and analysis software – It is simple to use and makes invoicing clients an easy task
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This is what I need right now. Find difficult to track my time.
Thanks for the post
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I’m using a very simple web based completely free solution myHours.
http://www.myhours.com/
You just have to insert projects and tasks with optional price per hour, select the project/task you are working on and click on start/finish or manually insert the time, that’s it.
It only lacks some more options when making reports which are too simple at the moment, I think this part could(must) be improved.
I will try the solutions you mentioned, thanks for the article.
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i already knew about cash board and freshbooks…..but this list is awesome……
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Activity Tracker Plus is another free online to-do list and time tracking tool that uses Google Spreadsheet to store data. Give it a try
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I like FreshBooks.
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I tried just a couple but all the apps sounds great. Apps are here to make things more easier and fun for us and I’m sure even those which I haven’t tried from this list will be very helpful.
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Thanks for putting together the list! I know a few of them but will try out the others as well. Another time tracking software I would recommend checking out is the Replicon software. Take a look and am sure it will be there in your next list!
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